


Heat Haze – Felix

by InoruMarufuji



Series: Nightmare [7]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Angst, Bine you have a VIP pass so feel free to enter, Bine's Birthday Celebration: SKZ Nightmare Series, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Disjointed narrative, Gen, Hallucinations, I don't think there's any hope for me, Keep walking, No Spoilers, Puzzle fic, THIS HELL IS MEMBERS ONLY, They aren't specified because spoilers, Unreliable Narrator, lots and lots of it, triggering elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:53:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InoruMarufuji/pseuds/InoruMarufuji
Summary: [M̶a̶z̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶M̶e̶m̶o̶r̶i̶e̶s̶ ̶ |S̳i̳d̳e̳ ̳E̳f̳f̳e̳c̳t̳s̳][7/9] My head hurts. - Side Effects
Series: Nightmare [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1569787
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Heat Haze – Felix

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhyAreAllUsernamesTaken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyAreAllUsernamesTaken/gifts).

> Hands down, most confusing oneshot of this entire series.
> 
> Have fun with that, Bine.

[<strike>Maze of Memories</strike> | **Side Effects**]

Colors.

That was the first thing he noticed when he opened his eyes, his body still too tired to respond properly.

Colors danced in front of him, an endless swirl of specks and dots and half blurred pictures blocking his vision, creating an overwhelming nausea that crept up into his brain.

The colors were bright, too bright, confusing, too confusing, dizzy, too dizzy and he had to shut his eyes again.

There was a powerful pounding in his head, right behind his eyes, and a low hiss ripped from his throat, the noise unwelcome and painful as he brought up a hand to rub his forehead.

The movement made his muscles protest and lock up and he briefly wondered what he did to have his body respond like that, but the thought was merely a lost ship in the turbulent wide waters that were his mind, destined to sink into the dephts to be forgotten.

There was talking, voices, just outside his room, sounding agitated and worried, but he couldn't make out what they were saying, their words drifting in and out of existence.

He was floating, unable to steer, unable to do even so much as lift his head to stay above the water, the water that was so hot, yet so icy, yet so hot.

It forced the breath out of him, pulling him under in a haze that was peaceful and quiet, a haze that washed away his sight and his headache and himself.

''Felix?''

Strong arms were pulling him back to the surface, not even trying to be gentle as they heaved him out of the water, cold skin brushing against his.

His head fell to the side, into the soft comfort of the powdery sand and the azure of the sky mixed with the deep blue of the ocean into a thin line, one that wavered in front of his eyes like waves.

''Felix'', the same voice came again, seemingly from the sky, sounding more concerned than the previous time.

His hair was brushed out of his face by a sudden gust of wind, giving the unyielding sun more access to his skin so that it could burn him to ash.

''Are you okay, Felix? Lixie?''

A hand was on his face, softly stroking, trying to force a reaction out of him, but Felix had none to give, not even when the hand found its way to his own, squeezing it experimentally.

The touch was gone again almost immediately and so was the sand and the water, instead replaced by the hard tar of an uneven street and the howl of motors all around him that did nothing to ease the pressure in his head.

His fingers itched, closing around a dandelion that was peeking out through a crack in the tar, so determined, yet so useless to fight the bounds it had thrived within.

There were voices again, talking to each other in a hushed and secretive tone as they were trying to dispose of the evidence just a few metres away from him.

The sky was no longer a calming blue, but an aggressive orange, tinting everything in an ethereal light as the sun was setting on the scenery.

''He's heating up, get me some water!''

Colors.

There were too many colors, too bright and too dazzling and too intense and they made his body overheat.

He couldn't escape them even if he closed his eyes, even if he opened his eyes, for they followed him into his dreams and into his reality.

There were no coherent thoughts in this head of his, neither were there any individual memories he could distinguish, it was all one wad of feelings, sensations, voices and people that couldn't possibly be told apart from each other.

At least until his body turned to ice all of a sudden and he could hear himself gasping in panic, an irritating cold seeping into his skin, dripping off his fingers and crushing the dandelion under its weight, the flower turning grey as it became one with the street.

He was heaved up into a sitting position, his blurry focus unable to determine where he was exactly, on the beach, on the street, back in his bed or somewhere else all together.

''Hazy...'', he managed to get out and it seemed to be all the information the voice needed as it covered his body with another blanket, making sure to keep him all safe and warm.

The blanket was heavy, almost suffocating, but he didn't have the strength to inform the voice about that and neither did he have the strength to get it off himself, so he just accepted his fate as it was.

''Hyung, it's fine, I'll watch him.''

That was someone else, someone he knew as well, but he couldn't place the voice to a face and it was frustrating that his brain was so mushy and slow and unreliable as it kept taunting him with a name, only to pull it away just as he was about to grasp it.

''Seungmin, you should stay here too.''

''What? I want to come with you!''

He'd raised his voice, the volume of it further hurting Felix's head and he scrunched his face up, unable to do much else to show his displeasure.

Someone sat down on the bed next to him, silent, hesitant, not contributing to all the noise in the room and he was glad about that.

''It's enough if Changbin, Hyunjin and I go, stay here with Jisung.''

There were some more protests, but he didn't catch them that well as his senses slipped away once more, carried away by the waves in his mind, leaving nothing but background noise for him to focus on.

And then it was quiet again, a deafening silence enveloping him as he struggled to stay awake, to regain some sort of feeling in his body, to understand what was happening, to see who the person sitting on his bed was.

They were still there, he just knew it, but his sight failed him and so did his mouth and it was just so frustrating.

Why did he get sick all of a sudden? What did he do?

The person sighed and he felt as if they wanted to address him and say something, but the words never reached his ears, all he was capable of hearing being his own pained, ragged puffs of air, coupled with the occasional groan.

He seemed to have passed out for a quick moment too because the next time he was aware of what was happening was when his vision had cleared considerably, revealing the empty bedroom he shared with Changbin.

There was no one sitting on his bed anymore, he was all alone in the dark room that still had the blinds down, allowing only a few beams of sunlight to peek at him and shed their light on the nightstand next to the bed where a scribbled paper had been placed.

Felix had little to no coordination in his limbs, so it took him about five tries to even be able to touch the paper from his position, and three more to actually pick it up and get it to his face.

The words moved chaotically, up and down, then left and right, then up and down again, and his confused brain decided to completely lock up and not even try to decipher the Korean words.

That was, until it seemed to realize that those were English words.

_I'm out with Hyunjin and Changbin._

_Minho, Jisung and Seungmin will take care of you._

_Call me if you need anything._

_-Chan_

He read the note once at first, then twice. Then three times. Then four.

It didn't matter, he couldn't understand what these words were meant to convey to him.

The message was probably easy enough, but he simply couldn't make sense of it.

All he could take away from this note was that Chan had written it, at least he assumed so since he had signed with his name, but that was probably the least important part anyway.

The paper escaped his grasp, fluttering to the ground and out of his reach, and he turned his gaze up to look at the ceiling, watching it shift from left to right as well, never able to stay in one place.

Ceilings weren't supposed to do that. That was weird.

He wondered if it was only his ceiling that behaved like this, but he couldn't really remember any other ceilings to compare it to.

Did their dorm even have ceilings?

It had to have at least _some_, but it seemed like such an unreal concept to him in that moment.

Ceilings were like a lid to a box he was stuck in, they trapped him with no chance to ever escape, but what was capable of trapping ceilings?

They were free, nothing could cage them except the sky, which made it really unfair that they were so powerful, always able to loom over him and watch his daily life as if it was their business, as if it was their source of entertainment to watch him struggle under the tight grip they had on him.

Didn't ceilings have work to do themselves? Why were they insisting on spying on him all the time?

And why was the government just allowing that?

Someone should really plan a rebellion.

He noticed his mind drifting once more, yet before he could pass out again, the door to his room suddenly opened and someone quietly slipped in.

''Hey. Felix.''

This was a tired voice, one that sounded even more miserable than his own and Felix perked up, tearing his gaze from the ceiling to focus on the newcomer.

The meager lighting made it hard to tell, but he thought he saw dark grey hair and he instantly attempted to match it to a certain person.

He came up empty.

''You okay?''

The other male sat down on his bed, his hands shaking as they came to rest on the blankets Felix was wrapped in.

His eyes appeared to be misty, clouded, but then again, it was hard to tell exactly.

Felix tried to form an answer, a question, just anything really to prove to himself that he hadn't completely lost all control over his body.

''Who...''

He didn't get further, one word was all that managed to get past his lips, so he had to count on this guy's ability to fill in the blanks that were sure to be there if this was supposed to be a conversation.

''It's me, Minho.''

Luckily, he seemed to possess this ability.

Felix nodded, trying to associate the name with some sort of memory in his head and while there were a vast number of those, he wasn't able to cling to a single one of them.

''Hyung?''

He wasn't unsure as much as he wanted to test out how the word sounded on his tongue, its familiarity soothing him tremendously even though he had a feeling he hadn't used the term for quite some time.

Minho didn't reply at first, merely sighing heavily and letting his hand travel up to feel Felix's forehead.

''You have a high fever'', he stated, voice unstable and sounding offended, almost on the edge of tears.

Why was he so emotional about this? Wasn't a fever something normal?

Felix was confused and it must have shown because Minho's hand started shaking and his expression morphed into something that looked completely out of place in this situation.

Anger.

Pure, genuine anger.

''Why do you have a fever and I _don't?_''

Felix stared up at him, saw the threatening, savage, almost hysterical glint in his eyes and even through the slight haze he was in, he knew this would spiral out of control if he didn't say anything to calm the older down.

''This isn't fair. It's not fair. It's _not _fair.''

He couldn't count on his voice to defuse the situation, he could barely get one word out, let alone an entire sentence, so he just nodded wildly, eager to appease Minho's temper.

It wasn't fair, it most definitely wasn't fair, even though he wasn't even sure what Minho meant exactly.

His sight blurred from his erratic movements, colors blending into each other and distorting his surroundings into a mix of blacks and whites and greys that made his head hurt.

But it was fine as long as it kept Minho calm.

''Felix.''

There was a hand on his chest all of a sudden, fingers curling into his sweaty shirt that was sticking to his skin.

''You don't know anything, do you?''

He didn't like the way the question was phrased, he didn't like the sharp edge it had, he didn't like the scathing undertone, he didn't like this situation.

It felt as if he couldn't give a 'correct' answer at all, it felt as if Minho was just using this question as a spark to ignite a fire.

He had no idea how to respond, so he did the only thing he could do and nodded again.

Wrong choice.

His vision focused, just for a moment, but it was enough for him to see his hyung lunging at him, his hands instantly closing around his neck and squeezing painfully.

Felix's body was catapulted into full blown panic in a matter of seconds and despite his uncoordinated and weak state, he tried lashing out at Minho to get him to let go.

He didn't even manage to hit the older boy once, his arms too weak to function properly, which in turn only made him panic even more as he was denied precious oxygen.

''You're so lucky and you don't even know it.''

His voice had changed back to emotional again, emotional and frustrated, and Felix even thought he saw tears welling up in Minho's eyes before his sight was taken from him and he had to close his eyes.

He couldn't breathe.

He was gasping for air, an ugly, horrible mix of sobs and strangled breaths escaping him as he was squirming around uselessly, unable to detach Minho from his throat.

It hurt. It hurt so much.

In more ways than one.

''You don't have to go through the rest of your life remembering what you did. You don't have to feel disgusted every time you look in the fucking mirror, you don't have to wake up hating yourself, wanting to kill yourself, wanting to scratch your eyes out so you never have to look at yourself again.''

A violent shudder went through Minho and a sob of his own broke from his lips, but he never stopped pressing down on his throat, almost as if he was trying to choke out his own demons.

There was an overwhelming pressure in Felix's head and suddenly, Chan's note came to his mind, Chan's note that was lying discarded on the floor somewhere and whose message he suddenly understood.

_Call me if you need anything._

He needed something, he needed Minho to let go of him, he needed Chan to help him, but he couldn't call for help, he couldn't call for him, he couldn't do anything.

''You don't need to go through all this. I don't want to put you through this, I don't want you to suffer like I do, I just... I just-''

He lost his words halfway through the sentence and something wet hit Felix's cheek, mixing with his sweat and rolling down the side of his face.

''I just want to end myself.''

Minho made a pause and Felix could hear him take deep breaths that did nothing to help him calm down.

''I want to fucking kill myself, you hear?''

It sounded like a question, so Felix nodded obediently as best as he could.

It just seemed like the right thing to do.

''But I know it won't change anything. It won't change what I did, what _we _did and it's killing me. Even more than I am killing myself.''

The pressure on his neck was gone within a second, but he didn't feel relief just yet as he gasped for air, every breath painful as it made its way through his bruised throat.

He wanted to pass out again, to just sleep all of this away, to pass it off as a bad dream because no way in hell had his hyung just done that.

''I can't even look at the others anymore, Felix. I've tried.''

Something told Felix he was talking about something else. Something serious.

''I've tried to do it. Twice. I just need to go.''

It was all he got as a goodbye, Minho was gone like a gust of wind only seconds afterwards, and Felix let himself fall into unconsciousness, wondering if he had even been there in the first place.

The next time he opened his eyes, it was to Jisung's tear-stained face.

The other boy looked at him with disbelief in his eyes, scared and appalled as he held him by his shoulders, his fingers dangerously close to his neck that still hurt a considerable amount.

The blinds were gone from the window and the sun was now fully entering his room, revealing tossed over furniture, feathers from pillows that had been ripped open and most chilling of all, a-...

''Why? Why did you do it?''

A rope that was hanging from the ceiling, the noose cut open.

''Why did you try to kill yourself, Felix?''

He didn't answer. He didn't have an answer.

Jisung's accusing tone, his panic, his tears, they were the answer themselves.

He was hazy, so incredibly hazy, barely able to sit up, confused beyond end.

But of course Jisung saw the marks around his neck, the marks Minho had made there and of course he had come to that conclusion.

Felix shook his head, closing his eyes again.

He was not going to put himself through this.

He opened his eyes.

The room was tidy again, no sign of the former chaos, no sign of Jisung either and for a short second, he felt okay.

For a short second, it was okay.

Just a bad dream. Nothing to worry about.

But then he saw Seungmin's disappointed gaze and the box he held in his hands, the box that had had its etiquette drawn over with black marker until the inscription hadn't been visible anymore.

Of course he knew what it was.

''Why did you try to kill yourself, Felix?''

''I didn't.''

Seungmin didn't believe him.

He had no evidence, yet he still believed a box of sleeping pills over Felix and it was the worst feeling in the world to be betrayed like this by his own family, by one of his closest friends.

He closed his eyes.

And opened them.

It was hot. So incredibly hot.

The entire room was filled with black smoke and roaring flames that reached out to pull him down into hell, the crackling of the fire the worst sound he had ever heard.

He couldn't breathe.

There was so much pressure in his head, enough to make him think it was going to explode any second now, so he didn't notice right away that there were hands on him, gently tugging him towards the window, guiding him away from the aggressive fire.

''Why did you try to kill yourself?'', it hissed and Felix shook his head again, not trusting himself to speak.

_I didn't. I didn't. I didn't... **I didn't!** _

The words repeated over and over in his mind, growing more frantic, more panicked, more desperate.

Nobody believed him.

Why didn't they believe him?

He reached the window, his hands clumsily fumbling to get it open while dark spots invaded his vision, almost causing him to pass out right then and there.

It was so hot. He couldn't take it.

The city shimmered behind the glass, buildings blurring together into an indistinct mess in front of his eyes.

Then the glass suddenly disappeared and a gust of wind swept into the room, only agitating the fire even more as it screamed at Felix.

''Why did you try to kill yourself?''

Cold. It was so cold all of a sudden.

He shivered.

The wind merely laughed, whipping him across the face, pushing him back again, closer to the flames that wanted to consume him.

''Why didn't you kill yourself yet?'', it mocked and Felix closed his eyes.

He just wanted it to stop.

The fire pushed him forward towards the window, toying with him as if he was a ragdoll, and before he could properly understand what had happened, the ground suddenly disappeared from under him and he was falling.

He had closed his eyes.

And would never open them again.

[7/9] Echoes written in nothingness


End file.
